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| Topic: Original sin... explained... | |
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Genuine questions here folks... Okay, I'll play along. What was the original sin? The first sin. Adam's disobedience to God. "
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Why was it necessary to tempt Adam and Eve? Why do you believe that God is the One that tempted Adam? The fact is that it was satan who tempted Adam God does not tempt with evil. It wasn't. Were they not perfect up until then? Yes. If God is omniscient, then he would have already known what their choice would be. He did. So then, he wanted sinful humans... or... he is not perfect in his creation? No. What? If he had wanted for humans to remain perfect why did he not allow them to remain so?... Love. There, there are your simple answers. But the problem is, you don't understand all the details of those answers. You didn't want long answer, which would have included the details to actually make the short answer make sense. All I can suggest is that you go to that site. |
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Point number 2 If it was not 'necessary' to tempt them... While they were still 'perfect'... What was necessary then? It did happen though. Did God allow that? God didn't tempt Adam and Eve. It was never God desire to tempt Adam and Eve. The tree was placed in the garden, because Adam and Eve needed a way to disobey God. God only gave them the one rule. There was plenty of food in the garden, so hunger couldn't tempt them. They were tempted by the lies of satan and by their own pride. It's very likely that Adam and Eve would have taken the fruit even without temptation from Satan. Yes, God knew that Satan would tempt Eve, BUT God only knew that because it would happen. If God stopped Satan from tempting Eve, then God wouldn't have known that Satan would tempt Eve, so God wouldn't have stopped Satan, so Satan would have tempted Eve and God would have stopped Satan from tempting Eve, etc. Paradox. Therefore, God manipulates the present, with knowledge and acceptance of the future. We see time and again in the OT that God knows of a future event, expresses regret and remorse that the event will take place, but does nothing to stop it. Again I will state that the bible never says Satan tempted Adam and Eve. It only mentions a serpent. It was not till around the time Dante's Inferno was written that people started saying it was satan. |
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Genuine questions here folks... What was the original sin? Why was it necessary to tempt Adam and Eve? Were they not perfect up until then? If God is omniscient, then he would have already known what their choice would be. So then, he wanted sinful humans... or... he is not perfect in his creation? If he had wanted for humans to remain perfect why did he not allow them to remain so?... The original sin , as expressed in retrospect, is a limited example of a lack of communication in intimacy. Adam suffered being focused on his ownership of creation and not in unison with his surroundings. He was not sharing his knowledge with undersanding so that his mate may share equally in the garden of delights. The implication is that the woman had not been in dialogue with God directly nor had knowledge and understanding of Adam's benefit from God directly and was vulnerable to unwise communication. The story goes that she knew about the trees, but not about the fellowship of her own relationship with God directly. The greater implication is that the man and the woman neither were one nor close to one another. Apparently, they were not sharing all completely and expressing some individual choices without concurrence. Assuming , as you suppose, that temptation was necessary it stands to reason in retrospect that they were incomplete in their love of one another with mutual respect and dignity expressed for one another's well being. Assuming that it was not neceesary to tempt them, I can reason that they were not in a constant state of fellowship with God in their relatioship as a bonded pair being one with God. As far as biblical perfection is concerned, such is achieved by the presence of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and evidently lacking in the woman, or ignored by her. The Bible depicts spiritual deconstruction as being the willful work of man and redeemed, ultimately, by Christ in due time with good reason and requirement for a constant reminder of the void in the human heart that only God's presence can fill. At the end of the matter, one may reason that we, as men and women and families, enjoy the responsibilt of giving account of our actions , and of being mindful of the need to express mutual respect and dignity towards one another et al. OUCH. But that we find ourselves embattled by our differences does only reflect the corruption that exists in the human heart. That corruption may very well be symptomatic of self expression in covetous misapprehensions of the love of God and each other. ...which is the first commandment engendered far after the fact, and of the last commandment of Christ depicting the importance of the first commandment with the added caveat of completion enjoined through the love of one another as well. This suggests to me that community of man and the misrepresentation of the community of society lack the congruence and clarity for society reflectiong familial ties and familial ties being the extrapolated basis for social ties. It fits the present reality and all before it. It is quite simple at any juncture to realize that the void created by the ignorance of neglect has been defined best by the lack of mutual respect and dignity. Caring for one another, in general,in a wide symbiosis of common principles does not require manifold rules of conduct to find peace and joy, but only intimacy with truth and love in oneness of purpose. |
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Again I will state that the bible never says Satan tempted Adam and Eve. It only mentions a serpent. It was not till around the time Dante's Inferno was written that people started saying it was satan. The serpent was Satan. Satan wasn't in the form of a serpent, "serpent" was used by Hebrews like we would say "He's a snake". What did Jesus say of Satan? "He was a murderer from the beginning, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies" WHO was the first murderer? No, not Cain, it was the serpent. The serpent who killed all of humanity by tempting Eve. Who told the first lie? Not Adam, it was the serpent. Both murder and lying are attributed to have orginated with Satan. Therefore we know that the serpent was Satan. |
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Edited by
Spidercmb
on
Sat 01/05/08 11:11 AM
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If you don't get it, read the Old Testament. Watch for where God says "This will happen" or "That will happen" and notice that God warns, but does nothing else to stop the behavior. It's clear from the OT that God waits until a present situation deserves his actions before God acts.
You seriously don’t understand the difference between how we view the Bible Spider. Let me genuinely try to explain this to you so that hopefully you might gain a bit of insight in to how I view the Bible. Let’s say we’re going to go watch a movie together. We sit down and watch it, and during the course of the movie one of the characters is constantly foretelling what will happen in the future. And everything he predicts always comes true. After the movie is over, you start talking in terms of the characters in the movie and you say how amazing it was that they had this incredible power of prediction. I smile and say, but Spider it was just a movie. The producers and screenwriters all knew what they were going to write next, the characters weren’t real. They didn’t really have these powers of prediction that the movie instills in us. Well, this is precisely how I view the Bible. You believe the stories are real. Therefore you stand in awe at their power of prediction etc. I believe that men wrote the bible. So I’m not impressed that they knew what they were going to write next (or that future authors wrote stories to match was previous authors had suggested might happen). The stories were always written down after the fact. They were made up. This is especially true of the New Testament. Everything was written down after the fact. It’s easy to write down that Jesus knew that Judas would betray him before he died. The story is being written down after the fact. I’m not impressed because I see how the producers of these stories can make it look like people knew what was going to happen next when in reality it never happened that way. You are impressed because you believe the stories are true. I’m not going to be impressed no matter how many times I read them because I believe that men wrote them. There’s no way that I’m going to go back to believing that the stories are accurate accounts of history. So asking me to read the OT to see for myself is redundant. I have no doubt that everything you say is true. I’m not impressed. It’s still just mortal authors making this stuff all up. I simply don’t believe that the stories are true. They are man made fairytales, and the inconsistencies and contradictions contained within the stories are living proof that they are the fabrications of man as far as I’m concerned. That’s where I’m at today and I’ve been at this conclusion for quite some time. I’m not about to go back to viewing it as a movie again. It’s just not going to happen. Then why discuss the Bible? You were just arguing that God could intervene at any point in time and I showed you that the OT doesn't show that. Now you claim it's all just a story, so it doesn't matter. Why did it matter last night? Why did you feel the need to argue? I suspect it's because you thought you had found a "Bible killer" and when I pointed out that all of the OT shows that God intervenes in the present, with full awareness of the future, you decided to change your story and claim that it's all just a story, so you don't care. |
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Hey wouldee!!!
How are ya young man? I have wondered where you have been.... 
You have presented a more allegorical explanation, for sure, which is close to the explanation which I held while still actively believing that every word in the text was divine, no matter if it was well understood or not. Whiteboy has developed a good case of faulty logic in the more literal notion. So within those given premises, the literal translation does not work out logically. However, the allegorical explanation while avoiding the literal noose, has issues also... the notion of 'good', prior to the symbolism of the tree of knowledge is just one... One must fill in a large number of 'blanks' to come away with an understanding such as you have described. While your extrapolations are always done well, there are always others which differ, that are done equally as well. Yours lessens the importance or worthiness of the woman, a quite common yet dangerous proposition, would you not say? I personally see no reason to feel that a woman is a lesser creature. The differences I would not attempt to completely define as corruption of the heart though... either way... I believe there is more than that to it... for sure... One cannot leave out the affects of what one has been taught, nor individual experience, which is indeed a sliding scale... In human life, there are no absolutes... As is with most issues concerning the text... it all boils down to 'faith'... Which is why I have came to the crossroads and have subsequently chosen one that leads me away from the personification of 'God'... You prescence in the synoptic thread would be appreciated... It needs to get back on that subject anyway... The issues were confused, as a result of noone finding anothers proposition(s) feasible, due to disagreements with establishing credibility of evidence...a common problem with religious debate... |
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"Another prominent omission in the Old Testament, Kelly said, can be found in Genesis. "Nobody in the Old Testament — or, for that matter, in the New Testament either — ever identifies the serpent of Eden with Satan," Kelly said. "The serpent is just the smartest animal, and he's motivated by envy after being jilted by Adam for Eve."
Kelly traces the correlation of Satan and the serpent to not long after the New Testament was completed. In his "Dialogue With Trypho," the second-century Christian martyr Justin of Samaria first argued that Satan appeared as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve to disobey God, according to Kelly. "This is what I call 'The New Biography,'" Kelly said. "It starts with Justin Martyr, who implicates Satan in the fall of Adam and Eve. By causing Adam and Eve to fall, Satan caused his own fall." http://www.physorg.com/news75128924.html I have also seen a documentary on the devil that also discussed this. |
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Justin was murdered for heresy was he not?
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Edited by
anoasis
on
Sat 01/05/08 11:46 AM
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If eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (or the tree of knowledge of morality) was the original sin, how did those two even know that disobeying God was the wrong thing to do to begin with? 
I always think that this is a good point... Adam and Eve were, I thought, child-like in their innocence. They were told not to eat from the tree of knowledge but how did they know "right from wrong" prior to eating from the tree of knowledge. To me it always seemed like they were more like animals prior to "eating knowledge".... can animals "sin"? I did not think that animals could "sin" because they don't know right from wrong. They are instinctual. They kill or steal or fight to survive but I have never heard these called "sins" by those that believe in sin. Were not "Adam and Eve" more similar to animals because they had no "knowledge"? That's how the story seems to me. |
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Edited by
anoasis
on
Sat 01/05/08 11:47 AM
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I will give one more explanation and then if you still don't get what I am saying then we can agree to disagree. When I was a kid sometimes my mom wouldn't let me do things and I would never know why. When I would ask she would say "because I said so." Kind of like that. They didn't know why they couldn't all they knew was "because God said so". I personally think this is actually the origin of that story. It is not my intention to offend those who believe the bible is the literal word of God, but I do not believe that. I believe that it is stories from men that were primarily intended to get people to be nicer to one another (not an unworthy goal). However, just like fairy tales with similar motivations, these stories are often (again to me) "scare tactics" to keep people from asking questions. I think lots of parents do get tired of explaining and answering endless questions so they come up with the "because I said so" logic. The story of Adam and Eve seems to me to be the ultimate "because I said so" and "dont' ask any more questions" story. No offense intended, I know that others disagree but I just thought it might be interesting to some. Peace. |
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I would think not. If you want to believe they were as God created then you would have to think that God would give them intelligence enough to decide to obey or disobey. Knowing the difference between good and evil and deciding to disobey or obey your creator are 2 different things.
I think its kind of naive to believe in the story of Adam and Eve and think God would not give them enough since to choose. Was not eve originally reluctant to eat the fruit when the serpent first suggested it? That shows some since of knowing she shouldn't do it. She wasn't like "try the fruit..ok" |
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"Another prominent omission in the Old Testament, Kelly said, can be found in Genesis. "Nobody in the Old Testament — or, for that matter, in the New Testament either — ever identifies the serpent of Eden with Satan," Kelly said. "The serpent is just the smartest animal, and he's motivated by envy after being jilted by Adam for Eve." Kelly traces the correlation of Satan and the serpent to not long after the New Testament was completed. In his "Dialogue With Trypho," the second-century Christian martyr Justin of Samaria first argued that Satan appeared as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve to disobey God, according to Kelly. "This is what I call 'The New Biography,'" Kelly said. "It starts with Justin Martyr, who implicates Satan in the fall of Adam and Eve. By causing Adam and Eve to fall, Satan caused his own fall." http://www.physorg.com/news75128924.html I have also seen a documentary on the devil that also discussed this. I just showed you scripture showing that Jesus called Satan the first murderer and liar. But if you want to believe that the serpent was jealous and wanted to have sex with Eve (an extra-scriptural belief), that's your business. |
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Yes but he did all that before creation. I never said the serpent wanted to have sex with her. Why do you wish to force words in other peoples mouths.
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Edited by
Spidercmb
on
Sat 01/05/08 11:49 AM
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Yes but he did all that before creation. I never said the serpent wanted to have sex with her. Why do you wish to force words in other peoples mouths. First, I don't put anything into anyone's mouth. Second, you said "The serpent is just the smartest animal, and he's motivated by envy after being jilted by Adam for Eve." jilted To deceive or drop (a lover) suddenly or callously. |
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for one thing I was quoting a site and never claimed to take all text word for word, I was referring to the serpent not being satan. There are instances where that word is used in a non sexual context such as an article I was reading about Microsoft executives feeling jilted due to recent decisions by the Dell corporation.
Word meanings also tend to change over a few years much less thousands. I did a report on the changing meaning of the word queer for a freshman english class a few years back. The bible is also filled with different instances like that that some people take as sexual but not everyone believes it. Again you are trying to say what I believe and you have no idea or right to try to claim that. |
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Yes but he did all that before creation. Really? Genesis 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. The serpent in Genesis was cast down onto the earth...so was the "old serpent" (called the Devil / Satan) in Revelations 12:9. Satan was called a "liar from the beginning" by Jesus...whom did he lie to? Eve, as described in Genesis 3. |
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I would think not. If you want to believe they were as God created then you would have to think that God would give them intelligence enough to decide to obey or disobey. Knowing the difference between good and evil and deciding to disobey or obey your creator are 2 different things. I think its kind of naive to believe in the story of Adam and Eve and think God would not give them enough since to choose. Was not eve originally reluctant to eat the fruit when the serpent first suggested it? That shows some since of knowing she shouldn't do it. She wasn't like "try the fruit..ok" Well it's not a straight forward story for me. One thing that is usually mentioned in all versions of this story is that Adam and Eve "didn't know they were naked" and "had no shame" before eating from the tree of knowledge. Seems pretty animalistic to me... But i don't believe that my creator would ask me to do or not do anything. I do believe my creator imbued humankind with enough sense to know (or learn) how to behave well towards others and care for him/herself and others... but as I mentioned, I don't believe that this story comes from my creator. Nor does it reflect charactoristics *my* creator. A "jealous" god that "tests" it's creations seems very strange and frankly unappealing to me. But it is an interesting story. I certainly like the description of the earth as a beautiful garden... very few parts of it resemble that anymore. |
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yes but that could be a coincidence. Just because he calls them both a serpent does it mean it is the same one? It is true some people believe it. I am just saying it never actually says they are on in the same.
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I would think not. If you want to believe they were as God created then you would have to think that God would give them intelligence enough to decide to obey or disobey. Knowing the difference between good and evil and deciding to disobey or obey your creator are 2 different things. I think its kind of naive to believe in the story of Adam and Eve and think God would not give them enough since to choose. Was not eve originally reluctant to eat the fruit when the serpent first suggested it? That shows some since of knowing she shouldn't do it. She wasn't like "try the fruit..ok" Well it's not a straight forward story for me. One thing that is usually mentioned in all versions of this story is that Adam and Eve "didn't know they were naked" and "had no shame" before eating from the tree of knowledge. Seems pretty animalistic to me... But i don't believe that my creator would ask me to do or not do anything. I do believe my creator imbued humankind with enough sense to know (or learn) how to behave well towards others and care for him/herself and others... but as I mentioned, I don't believe that this story comes from my creator. Nor does it reflect charactoristics *my* creator. A "jealous" god that "tests" it's creations seems very strange and frankly unappealing to me. But it is an interesting story. I certainly like the description of the earth as a beautiful garden... very few parts of it resemble that anymore. What you see as a test I see as a choice. If he didn't give a way to disobey then there would be no free will to serve. He wanted man to have a choice. There is a theory that some have that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the new Testament are 2 different Gods. |
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I think it's strange that you quote a site, which claims that the serpent wanted Eve as a lover and then you attack me for assuming you believe that site. I took what you gave me and commented on it. Why would you attribute so much ill will to me, when it's obvious that you are at fault for quoting a theory with which you disagree.
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